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Post Cold War

Post Cold War Web Sites

The New York Times Learning Network
This informative site offers detailed lesson plans and quizzes built around NYT articles. Check out the Lesson Plan Archive and search by keyword, subject, or grade level. Social studies lesson plans are objective and standard-based and are well supported by charts, graphs, and images.

Global Connections
Global Connections: Putting World Events in Context provides the background information needed to understand events occurring in the Middle East. The site includes original materials created in conjunction with the Centers for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard and UCLA. The site also aggregates and contextualizes the rich resources available throughout public broadcasting, including material from Frontline, Online NewsHour, NOW with Bill Moyers, Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, and many others. Designed with educators in mind, the site is also useful for those curious to better understand the Middle East and its relationship with the West.

The Price of Freedom: Americans at War
This Smithsonian website skillfully integrates Flash video and text to examine armed conflicts involving the U.S. from the Revolutionary War to the war in Iraq. Each conflict contains a brief video clip, statistical information, and a set of artifacts. There is also a Civil War mystery, an exhibition self-guide, and a teacher’s guide. The New American Roles (1899-present) section contains an introductory movie and short essay on the conflict as well as historic images and artifacts.

The Gulf War
This Frontline site offers a comprehensive and engaging history of the Gulf War from the perspective of those who participated. Major categories include Oral Histories, War Stories, and Weapons and Technology; there are maps, a chronology, images, essays, discussions of Gulf Syndrome, and more.

America Remembers
The site contains pictures, articles, stories, videos, and a comprehensive overview of not only the day of 9/11, but also the days to follow, and the days leading up to it. The main categories of the site are “September 11, 2001” which includes a timeline of the day, “Faces of September 11” which includes direct quotes and stories from people involved in September 11, and “The Cleanup” which has photographs and clips. Other categories are: “Fighting Terror” which has links to articles on the war against terrorism, the rescues of people, recovery, investigation, and even information on Anthrax and “A Changed World,” with comments on chances for new attacks, the way Bush dealt with the war, and how much Americans were changed by September 11.

War Against Terror
Part of the CNN.com Archives, this site is an excellent introduction to the issue of terrorism as it relates to 9/11.

Teacher OZ: Terrorism
This section of Teacher Oz’s Kingdom of History provides a useful set of links dealing with terrorism and, more specifically, with the tragedy of September 11.

AIDS at 20
Provides 350+ New York Times articles on the AIDS epidemic as well as video, fact-sheets, reports and nine articles specifically related to AIDS in Africa.

The Clinton Years
PBS examines President Clinton’s years in office in this engaging study

Clinton Accused
A Washington Post report that covers the impeachment of the President and offers photos, documents, articles, and more

Justice Learning: Civic Education in the Real World
Justice Learning uses audio from the Justice Talking radio show and articles from The New York Times to teach students about reasoned debate and the often-conflicting values inherent in American democracy. The web site includes articles, editorials, and oral debate from the nation’s finest journalists and advocates. All of the material is supported by age-appropriate summaries and additional links. In addition, for each covered issue, the site includes curricular material from The New York Times Learning Network for high school teachers and detailed information about how each of the institutions of democracy (the courts, the Congress, the presidency, the press, and the schools) affect the issue.

The Affirmative Action and Diversity Project: A Web Site for Research
This site, by a member of the English department at the University of California Santa Barbara, is an academic resource and provides scholars, students, and the interested public with on-site articles and theoretical analyses, policy documents, current legislative updates, and an annotated bibliography of research and teaching materials. Because of the physical location of this resource, it contains a substantial amount of information on California politics and the current debate over California’s Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin. However, the materials at the site are helpful for putting the 2003 Supreme Court (University of Michigan) decision on affirmative action in historical perspective.

CIA World Factbook
The Factbook is a great starting point for amassing general information about individual countries.

The History News Network
The HistoryNewsNetwork was created in June 2001 and features articles by historians on both the left and the right who provide historical perspective on current events. HNN exists to provide historians and other experts a national forum in which to educate Americans about important and timely issues, and the only web site on the Internet wholly devoted to this task. HNN is a nonprofit publication run by George Mason University, is updated daily, and averages roughly 1.5 million hits a month. Those of you who have visited the U.S. History landing page in Best of History Web Sites may have noticed that I link to HNN articles in the U.S. History in the Classroom section.

CNN: Education 404
CNN: Education provides teachers with instructional materials for integrating current events across the curriculum. A student section keeps students in grades 6-12 aware of the latest news of interest to them. Lesson plans, background material, profiles, links to useful Internet sites, and forums for interaction with other teachers are also included.

Give Peace a Chance: Exploring Non-Violent Alternatives to Terrorism
In this lesson, students reflect on the 1979 occupation of the American Embassy in Iran. They then research the nations that are believed to currently pose a threat of terrorism toward the United States and speculate on ways in which these nations’ conflicts with the United States could be solved through non-violent means. (November 6, 2002)

Peace Signs: Exploring the ‘Roller Coaster Ride’ of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
In this New York Times lesson, students review their prior knowledge about the peace process in Israel and examine recent steps towards peace. They then research key figures, events and policies since Israel’s statehood in 1948 and determine how they impacted the peace process, illustrating their effects as if the process were a roller coaster. Finally, students reflect on how the proposed road map for peace might change the path of the roller coaster they created. (May 7, 2003)